Fragments from the life of a Direct Marketing Operative aka a leaflet monkey. Interspersed with current affairs, feminism, atheism and swearing.

Friday, 13 January 2012

How To Love A Leafleteer

Obviously you should all love me, because I'm fabulous. Etc. Lots of people think I'm fabulous. Mr Kite thinks so. Several of the Clients do (though maybe not Pesky Paranoid Client). Even Stupid New Client with the food issues thinks so, at the moment. I don't know why you wouldn't love me. In these hard times, I am promoting and supporting small, local businesses and that is a good thing.
But even if you are not disposed to love me, perhaps you could refrain from various ways of making my life hell. Here's how.

Don't have a bitey letterbox.

You know, the sort that won't open at first, then suddenly does so with deceptive ease and THEN snaps back viciously on my fingers.

Don't have a bitey barky dog.

Or at least, if you do, have an external mailbox, or a cage behind the door-mounted letterbox or something. I would like to retain the normal number of fingers. And not have to leap back shrieking and put my foot in the fishpond when the bitey barky dog has been lurking behind the front door right up to the very moment I push the leaflet through, at which point it goes utterly hatstand out of nowhere ie WOOF WOOF WOOARGH GGGRRAAGGH WOOF FUCKING WOOF THUMP CRASH.

Don't live halfway up a cliff with eight thousand steps between street level and your front door. And if you must do this, please be considerate. Just a little bit. Not just of me but of your poor postie who has to come to your house every day.
Nice ways to do this include having a mailbox either at street level or at least only halfway up the eight thousand winding, slippery, steep steps, somewhere among the wonky statuary (and please don't have shit that looks like Weeping Angels in the shrubbery, it upsets me and struggling not to blink for the next 20 minutes makes me slobber) and the killer dripping trees.

And if you hate me so much that you have a No Junk Mail Leaflets or Flyers sticker, put it at the BOTTOM of the eight thousand steps. Don't make me climb all the way up there to find that you have labelled your letterbox NJM in really, really tiny writing that I have to obey. Not only does this tempt me very strongly to leaflet your house anyway, but if I had the anatomical capability I would very much want to widdle through the letterbox as well.